There are a lot of different Social Media websites on the market. And it is basically impossible to use them all and they are not all well known enough to be worth putting your time and effort into them.
The main players at the moment are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

So which one is the right one for you and your business? Idealy you would use all three of them, but that might not suit your type of business, you might not have the time or don’t feel comfortable using them.

What should you be aware of?

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is mainly a business network where you as a person sign up, put up your CV and experience (using their interface) and connect to other people you know due to having worked with them or of course private friends as well.
Due to these connections and their connections you can get in contact with people you might want to meet or need a certain information from.
The CV can link to more information about the companies you worked or are working for and you can get recommendations from colleagues, bosses or clients. You even can show a creative portfolio if that is your business.
In addition there are groups you can join. They can be e.g. Alumnis, business focussed or networking groups. There you can get information and show your competence.
Another way to show your competence and therefore attract clients or employees is using the answers and questions application.

Facebook
Facebook originally started as a private social network but gets more and more important for businesses too.
It is ideal for you if you want to share information, pictures and links with your existing or future clients and don’t want be be limited in the amount of text you write (see Twitter).
Due to Facebook’s feature of sharing posts and links it is easy for your fans to spread the word. And when they comment on your posts their friends will see it and might connect with you too.
But there are a few things you need to be aware of:

As a business you need to set up a page not a personal profile and the process is slightly different. In fact it is even a bit more complicated but once set up it is much easier for people to connect to your page as they can just click to like it whereas with a profile you need to accept their friendship request. If you set it up as a profile Facebook might even close that account and you loose all efford you have put into it.

If you want to run a competion for your fans you now need to use a Facebook application for that and follow certain rules. You can’t just post it on your page and mail the winner anymore.

So you need to familiarise yourself with the Facebook terms & condition and in fact need to check them regularly – or get updates for people that follow news about Facebook as part of their business.

Twitter
Twitter is basically a variation of an online chat. It is a very fast way of communication as you are limited to 140 characters in your tweet, i.e message. It can contain links to pictures or websites and these links can get shortened so that you safe characters but most tweets don’t even use the full length available.
You decide who’s tweet you want to see when you are on twitter and people decide if they want to read your tweets. You can make them private so that only the people you allow to follow you can read them, but obviously that is not recommended for a business as like a profile on Facebook it makes it too complicated for people to connect with you.
The more people you follow Twitter can become quite confusing with too much information in a short period of time. But there are special applications on the market to help you. With the best known being Tweetdeck which was acutally bought by Twitter as confirmed just today. With Tweetdeck you can have a column for every list of people your created to get a better overview, have an extra column for tweets that mention you and for direct messages plus you can post your tweet simultaneously on your Facebook page.

If you want to get more information or need help or advice on using Social Media please contact me and we can have an informative chat.

Not only websites are more and more important to promote your business. The use of Social Media is almost more important – if it is done right.

In a nutshell the pros are:

Social Media is a more effective way to connect with your clients – existing and future. You can engage with them, inform them about news, show your competence or even reward them for being or becomming your client.

Search engines, especially Google, include your Social Media activity in their algorithms. So your ranking in search results (Seach Engine Optimisation – SEO) improves with your use of Social Media.

And the cons:

Social Media can be very time consuming. Time you need to invest beside running your business.

If you do it wrong, i.e. use it too much and basically spam your clients or don’t react in an appropriate manner to any complaints they might post on your social page, you could damage your business.

So you need to think about your options and capacity.
There are companies that can look after your Social Media for you – but would they be able to represent you and your business 100%? Especially for small businesses it is important to be in direct contact with their clients.

If you are not sure how to decide or which option is the right one for you contact me and we can have an informative chat.